Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Sports An arena for equestrian shows.
- n. An open-air stadium with an oval course for horse and chariot races in ancient Greece and Rome.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In classical antiquity, a place, more or less embellished by art, in which horse-races and chariot-races were run and horses were exercised: sometimes applied to a modern circus.
- n. In sporting slang, a race or other athletic contest in which it is arranged beforehand that a certain contestant shall win; a mock or fraudulent race.
- To conduct races, equestrian, pedestrian, or aquatic, or other contests, in which the result is prearranged by collusion between the managers and the contestants, in order to make gain through betting, etc.: in allusion to the prearranged or perfunctory races in a hippodrome or circus.
Wiktionary
- n. A horse racing course.
- v. baseball To stage a baseball game to suit gamblers.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Gr. Antiq.) A place set apart for equestrian and chariot races.
- n. An arena for equestrian performances; a circus.
- n. (Sports), Slang, U. S. A fraudulent contest with a predetermined winner.
- v. (Sports), Slang, U. S. To arrange contests with predetermined winners.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a stadium for horse shows or horse races
Etymologies
- From Latin hippodromos. From Ancient Greek ἱππόδρομος, from ἵππος (hippos, "horse") + δρόμος (drómos, "course"). (Wiktionary)
- French, from Old French ypodrome, from Latin hippodromos, from Greek : hippos, horse; see ekwo- in Indo-European roots + dromos, racecourse. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Horses were sometimes introduced, but then the hippodrome was the course.”
“In his gardens and chariot-racing center, called the hippodrome, almost a thousand people were brutally murdered.”
“A hippodrome, with sun, moon, and stars to referee!”
“That was the only time he penned me, -- three days of it, -- but after that the hippodrome never stopped.”
“This delightful anthology of prose and poetry, mostly homegrown but with contributions from Pliny on the magnificence of the box hedges cut into a thousand animal shapes in his Tuscan garden (with hippodrome), the 9th-century Frankish monk Strabo on the cultivation of dung heaps, and Thomas Jefferson on his ever-expanding vegetable patch, is the perfect companion for weeding, dead-heading, pricking out and mulching.”
“Read it properly to revel (or reveal for the slow of speech) in its secrets and secrete properly your resigns on the public amphitheater floor, run in the hippodrome your best horses and sail your vessels (vassals?) under the loving eye of the goddess.”
“But Hezbollah fired so many volleys of rockets from the nearby orchards that it feared reprisal bombings against the crowd that would gather to bury the dead in the open field by the ancient hippodrome.”
“Through a temple the walkway led to a vast hippodrome.”
“The adventurer, armed only with a hand-ax, trails the beast and traps it in a small valley like a hippodrome, perhaps five miles around, and runs the beast for two months, not allowing it to eat, drink or sleep, until it "fell to whimpering and crying like a baby.”
“Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins.”
“It's a view from the breakfast room of the Hotel Spectra, looking across the old Roman hippodrome to the Mosque of Sultanahmet, better known over here as the Blue Mosque.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hippodrome’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Horse of a different color
Hippeastrum, Hippocras Wine, Hippocrates, hippa, Bizerte, hippocampe, Hippios, Equuleus, Equus scotti, hippiäinen, equus grevyi, Equus ferus and 54 more...
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Big Top
roadshow, hooplah, derring do, acrobat, buffoonery, cavort, hijinks, gaiety, frolic, ringmaster, stilts, tightrope and 77 more...
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-drome
denoting a place for running or racing; running or proceeding a certain way
hippodrome, palindrome, syndrome, prodrome, dromomania, catadromous
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ShuckFinn's Words
abecedarian, conflate, mondegreen, whit, truculent, downright, pugnacious, effluvium, canker, inveigle, obfuscate, melancholy and 227 more...
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Words I like
This is a list of my favourite words (phrases) in english, as a second language. I love them mostly because of how they sound and their meaning.
ninja, cookie, skill, zip, plentiful, digg, debris, pancake, cucumber, fetch, pot, backpack and 461 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, H
hurlyburly, hurtle, hodgepodge, heartwood, hatch, halo, hooptedoodle, hacienda, hairpin, heyday, hardscrabble, hopper and 208 more...
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Words of Whimsy & Grace
abecedary, addendum, ampersand, anachronism, avuncular, balderdash, barnacle, befuddle, behemoth, bejeebers, blabbermouth, blatherskite and 465 more...
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hippo-, -hippus
horse
hippocrepian, eohippus, hippocampine, hippocrepiform, hippoglossoid, hippocampus, hippodrome
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Words that kick serious ass
juggernaut, haymaker, gung-ho, frag, smite, blunderbuss, gargantuan, ragnarok, ripsnorter, herculean, silverback, firebrand and 127 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3248 more...
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Missed words
Words I missed when practicing for the Spelling Bee
seicento, gnomon, clepsydra, detent, coccolithophore, gonyaulax, quoits, lamellibranch, alliteration, innocuous, saboteur, affenpinscher and 79 more...
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gefafwisp's Words
interminable, sesquipedalianism, hippodrome, prerogative, noggin, hubris, moratorium, whimsy, woggle, defenestrate, pleb, azimuth and 3 more...
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mifunemom's Words
recondite, lugubrious, anapest, dactyl, doggerel, apotheosis, recalcitrant, remiss, hippodrome, languid, orbicular
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Dystopos's Words
defenestrate, sarsaparilla, finagle, kerf, fester, phlegm, churl, dovecote, shark, frailty, splendid, lant and 57 more...
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word set11
slipstreaming, derailleur, sapwood, obovate, wickerwork, rupestrine, orthographical, fructified, dynamometer, stolidity, shadow puppeting, hyperpolyglot and 63 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hippodrome.
reesetee Good heavens, Abraxas--have you seen a doctor about those eyeballs? Feb 21, 2007
abraxaszugzwang Uselessness, I'm 5'11, have piercing eyeballs and clean fingernails. I enjoy listing, long walks on the beach, loud music, and teasing internet stalkers. Feb 21, 2007
uselessness *writes down AZ's age in his stalker notebook*
*whistles innocently* Feb 21, 2007
reesetee Seanahan, that's a bit harsh--or am I taking you the wrong way? Seems to me that c_b was just asking whether people were of the same age range here. I'm sure no offense was intended. Feb 21, 2007
seanahan Funny, I'm also 24. And yes, it is is impolite to ask a lady her age, even on the internet. Of course, not all women are ladies... Feb 21, 2007
chained_bear I'm not 24. I'll leave it at that. :) "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog." Feb 21, 2007
abraxaszugzwang I'm 24. Is it inappropriate asking a lady her age if it's on the internet? Feb 21, 2007
reesetee Um...noooooo. But I'm probably too old. ;-) Feb 21, 2007
chained_bear Yes.
Are we the same age? Feb 20, 2007
abraxaszugzwang anyone else think Hungry Hungry Hippos? Feb 20, 2007